Book 1: Chapter 3: (4)

「Phew—I feel so refreshed. I guess the long T-shirt’s fine but it would probably be pretty uncomfortable to sleep in slacks. I’ll go buy a jersey later.」

As I entered the Japanese-style room, the cups that were set in front of RIa had been pretty much emptied out. But just as expected, above half of the cola was still left in the glass cup.

As our eyes met, Ria spoke.

「Oops」

It seemed that she was embarrassed that she was staring straight at the cup of cola, struggling.

Her face turned a bit red.

「Hahaha. It’s alright to leave some behind. It’s a matter of whether it suits your tastes. But it tastes quite good once you get used to it. 」

「No. I’m not some child who can’t drink her medicine so I’ll drink all of it.」

「Hm? Sure, cola does have a bit of a medicine-like taste but」

It seemed that she thought that the cola was some sort of medicine.

「My paralysis was cured the moment I drank it, so I’ll drink all of it!」

「W-what did you say?」

「What? The little bit of paralysis left in my hands and legs recovered immediately when I drank a bit of this so this is medicine right?」

Could it be? Was it possible? In the dungeon world, cola was…

「What might be wrong?」

「Ah, it’s nothing. Nothing at all. You’re right. Cola is medicine. You don’t need to force yourself to drink it but it’s good for your body.」

「Nevertheless, your artifacts really are amazing, wise sage. Even intermediate-level poison neutralisation magic barely worked on this paralysis poison. 」

「Is that so?」

There was a possibility that cola was able to neutralise poison. And it seemed that it was pretty strong too.

I took out the memo pad which I recorded my stats on from my pocket and wrote 「there is a possibility that cola can neutralise poison」

Well then, should we have our meal soon?

What should I make? I bought some ingredients from the ingredients section at Tons Quijote just now.

It might be good to ask RIa what she likes to eat.

I was pretty good at cooking. I mean, I worked in the kitchen at a family restaurant as my part-time job.

Alright, so that I can continue to talk to her while I cooked, I’ll have Ria sit in the living room.

「Ria, please come here」

「Yes?」

I made Ria sit down on a chair in the living room.

I then asked her while I looked at the refrigerator.

「What do you usually eat in the dungeon, Ria?」

「Probably the same as what any normal adventurer does」

「No, um, like…you don’t really know what a normal adventurer’s like when you become a wise sage so.」

「Ah, I’m sorry. An example would be bread as dry as rocks or some dry salted white fish. 」

It seemed that the meals they had were kind of gloomy, or more accurately, not good.

「Do those taste good?」

「I’m thankful as long as there’s food to eat but…it doesn’t really taste that good. That’s why I usually boil them in hot water to make them softer. If I do that, it becomes soft and actually quite edible!」

Ria said with a wide smile on her face.

「I-is that so」

「But for a certain reason, I lost all of my food…and fainted in the dungeon so」

What a poor thing…I could feel the tears well up in my eyes.

I put back the cheap yakisoba noodles that I was about to take out back into the fridge. Instead, I grabbed the premium hamburg steak I bought at the convenience store.

Of course, it would taste better if I made the hamburg steak from scratch myself, but if I just heat this up in the microwave, it’ll be done faster. She’s probably already starving.

And there was this. Having thought of a way to make it taste even better, I took out an egg too.

For now, I just put the hamburg steak and pre-packaged rice in the microwave to heat it up.

As I heated up a large amount of oil in the fry pan, I made a salad with lettuce and cherry tomatoes.

「Caesar dressing is a really delicious dressing. Is the olive oil all heated up?」

RIa then came to ask some questions.

「It smells so good. What are you making? 」

「I’m making dinner. You’re going to eat too right, Ria?」

「I-is that alright? Ingredients in a dungeon must be really valuable right? Even the drinks you gave me just now were…」

「Don’t hold back. You won’t regain your strength if you don’t eat, you know?」

「But…」

「I already started making enough food for two people, so if you don’t eat it’ll all just go to waste. What’s more, I couldn’t possibly eat alone when I’m sitting in front of someone else who’s starving.」

That was the truth. Moreover, I was making this hoping that it would make Ria happy.

As I insisted strongly, Ria stood up all of a sudden.

「I just remembered. Please wait a moment.」

Ria headed towards the dressing room.

As I was left there wondering what happened, she came back holding a small cloth bag.

With one hand, she flipped the cloth bag inside out. And on the palm of her other hand lay the contents of the bag

There were a few coins.

And the coins were shiny gold and silver.

「Are those gold and silver coins!?」

What’s more, they were pretty big. And they looked pretty heavy too.

「2 pieces of gold coins and 3 pieces of silver coins from Gadheus. Embarrassingly, this is all I have. I do think it probably isn’t enough at all but…」

It seemed that they really were gold and silver coins. I was surprised.

「No, it’s fine, it’s fine. I’m doing this for free.」

「I cannot allow that!!」

I-I surrender. She probably wouldn’t listen no matter what I said.

Should I just take it? I don’t know about silver, but I’ve seen signboards around town that said that they would buy gold off of you.

No, I can’t. Your grandmother’s going to be so disappointed in you Tooru. Taking money from a girl in trouble you’re trying to help.

Quick, think of some reason to turn oher down. Ah, got it.

「Ms. Ria. I’m not short on money at all, being a wise sage who sells his artifacts at a high value. Rather, I’m quite interested in what’s happening above ground so could you tell me about that instead? Since I’ve been shut in this here dungeon for so long」

In reality, I was thinking that I could probably just make a fortune out of selling cola to adventurers in the dungeon.

I mean… I was interested in stories from the dungeon world. I wanted to learn more about statuses and skills, and about monsters.

「Of course I wouldn’t mind doing so but it really doesn’t match up to your kindness, as well as the valuable resources that you have shared with me…」

It seemed that I convinced her slightly by asking her to share with me things that happened above the dungeon. But that didn’t seem to be enough. Oh yeah!

「Then could you please help me to make my artifacts?」

But of course, I wasn’t going to make her help me to make artifacts.

Recently, a lot of cheap furniture required you to assemble everything by yourself.

I had bought a bed frame when I moved here, but I was expecting that I would struggle assembling the entire frame myself.

To be fair, it was written on the box to assemble it with 2 people.

I’ll get Ria to help me with making the bed.

「Are you really OK with something like that! I apologise for not being able to do more, but I shall help. Actually I’ve been struggling a bit with money so…」

「Mhm mhm」

Ria spoke with her face turning slightly red.

Since she was a knight, it meant that she was probably a noble, even if she was a lower class one. Well, it’s not like I haven’t heard of nobles having trouble with money.

In the first place, there was probably a reason she came underground into a dungeon.

Thinking about it, I was all the more glad I didn’t take her money.

「Well then, I can make food for 2 people without any worries now」

「Thank you! Please do!」

That was good. I thought, as I poured the egg into the heated olive oil. I made a fried egg.

I measured the amount of time taken so that only the white parts would harden up, before I placed it over the premium hamburg steak. There, it was done!

On the table, I laid out two of each thing. There was the hamburg steak with egg on top, the lettuce and cherry tomato salad and the pre-packaged rice on a plate.

I had instant miso soup too, but I decided against it, seeing that Ria looked more like someone who came from an occidental area.